POW or Terrorflieger?

Clavin, Tom.  Lightning Down: A World War II Story of Survival.  New York: St. Matin's Press, 

          2021.  ISBN: 9781250151261

Are you interested in WWII aerial exploits?  What about escaping pilots in the French countryside?  Nasty Nazis?  Survival by the skin of your teeth?  Well, then join Tom Clavin as he lays out the tale of Joe Moser, Lightning pilot on his 44th mission that went very wrong and what happened after.

Joe Moser grew up in Washington state on a farm who dreamed of becoming a pilot of the P-38 Lightning.  He got his dream job as a pilot with the 429 Squadron of the Ninth Air Force based in England.  He flew bomber escort missions as well as ground attack missions.  On his 44th combat mission, his plane was hit and he had to parachute out of his plane.  Some French farmers tried to help, but he and two of the farmers were caught by the Germans.  Joe ended up in Fresnes prison in the hand of the Gestapo.  Shipped out on the last train before Paris fell to the Allies, Joe and many others ended up at Buchenwald Concentration Camp as one of 168 Allied fliers accused of being Terrorfliegers.  Only due to a surprise visit by a Luftwaffe officer, did the Allied fliers escape being executed, instead they were transferred to a regular POW camp.  But then with the Russians approaching, the POWs were marched out in January on a harrowing trek to another camp in Austria where barely survived until the US Army arrived.  Joe returned back to the Bellingham, Washington area to marry and become the "local furnace guy."  He did not talk much until late in life when he started reconnecting with fellow survivors and had his story make the newspaper rounds in 1982.  In 2009, when he was almost 90, Joe collaborated with Gerald Baron to write A Fighter Pilot at Buchenwald.  Joe Moser died December 2, 2015.

 

Tom Clavin provides a narrative with plenty of asides that brings to life one of the great survival stories of WWII  in Lightning Down.  Joe Moser rose from humble roots to become a fighter pilot, survive not just Buchenwald, but also an epic trek in the January 1945 winter that almost killed him.  Yet he came back home, found a job and raised a family without fanfare. He is a true American hero that everyone should know!

Animal Patrol!

 Roach, Mary.  Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law.  New York, W. W. Norton, 2021.  ISBN: 

          9781324001935

Do you have a problem with bears rummaging in your garbage?  Elephants tramping over your garden?  Gulls dive bombing your noggin?   Or mice infiltrating your domicile?  If so, then you have had animals that broke the law!  While modern society does not put animals on trial today (see The Advocate starring Colin Firth for when they did), animals are still punished for lawbreaking - not a law of Nature, but human law.  Fuzz will help you understand what is going on and why.

Mary Roach delves into animal lawbreakers with glee and gusto.  She attended WHART (Wildlife-Human Attack Response Training) to learn how to tell who or what killed the human lying on the ground.  She patrols the back alleys of Aspen (CO) to see the bears feasting on garbage cans not properly bear-proofed.  She visits India for the roaming elephants, the man-eating leopards and the breaking-and-entering monkeys.  Back in the US of A, cougars, mountain lions, and panthers are on the agenda in regard to where they roam and what they eat.  Then a trip to Canada for some killer trees and their crime and punishment.   Mary takes a walk around our gardens filled with poisonous plants and visits farmers and other victims (which includes The Pope!) of pillaging and harassing birds. The last few chapters deal less with the animal offenders and more on how humans try to discourage animal "misbehavior" and keep houses, work places, and food stores pest free.  

Mary Roach manages to find another off-beat topic to entertain and inform her readers in Fuzz.  Even if you do not get her quirky sense of humor, you will enjoy this book.

Is Speech Free?

 Rosenberg, Ian.  Free Speech Handbook: A Practical Framework for Understanding Our Free 

          Speech Protections.  Art by Mike Cavallaro.  New York: First Second, 2021.  ISBN:     

          9781250619754 

How much do you know about free speech?  The First Amendment?  What speech is actually free and what is not?  In 2021, Ian Rosenberg wrote The Fight for Free Speech: Ten Cases That Define Our First Amendment Freedoms which as been adapted into a graphic format by First Second Books as the first volume in a series about the US Constitution.

 

In both The Fight for Free Speech and Free Speech Handbook, Ian Rosenberg takes up current events to use as a lens on particular aspects of free speech.  Chapter one opens with the Women's March of 2017 and focuses on the marketplace of ideas.  Chapter two takes kneeling during the Pledge of Allegiance and the history of the Pledge of Allegiance in First Amendment case law.  Chapter three covers the concept of libel vs actual malice and the role this played in the Civil Rights Movement.  Chapter four walks out of school with student speech from the Vietnam War until now.  Chapter five talks Stormy Daniels, prior restraint and the Pentagon Papers.  Chapter six has a flipped-off President and the Draft.  Chapter seven brings up the role of the FCC with Samantha Bee, seven dirty words, and indecency.  Chapter eight powers up parody, Saturday Night Live, and Hustler.  Chapter nine listens to speakers we dislike or hate, the freedom of assembly, and funeral protests.  Chapter ten dives into social media, public parks, and "the Vast Democratic Forums of the Internet."  

 

In these ten chapters, the Afterword, and list of sources, Ian Rosenberg provides a very understandable summary of First Amendment right that we all, I hope, hold dear.  Take a look, pay attention, and practice your free speech rights! 

Why are Cities Abandonded?

 Newitz, Annalee.  Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age.  New York: W. W. Norton, 

          2021.  ISBN: 9780393652666

What does the phrase "lost cities" conjure in your mind?  Does Indian Jones hacking through the jungle only to stumble upon a vine covered ruin come to mind?  Or does careful excavation of mounds of dirt in the Middle East trigger your interest?  In Four Lost Cities, the reader gets to travel to three continents and participate in examining four urban centers and try to figure out what was going on before people walked away from these hubs of civilization.

Annalee Newitz opens with Catalhoyuk (Turkey), one of the earliest urban centers in the world.  After about a thousand years, the city was abandoned, gradually.  Her next stop is Pompeii (Italy) where a volcanic eruption put an end to a city in the midst of urban renewal.  The third stop is Angkor Wat (Cambodia) where expansionism and poor engineering led to the dwindling of the city into villages.  The final stop is Cahokia (United States) where the Mississippian culture flourished, built pyramids, and then pulled up stakes and left.  While visiting each city, Newitz concentrates on how the typical city dweller lived in each city.  Another of her focuses is on what attracted folk to the city and what eventually led them away.

Four Lost Cities is a bit of a misnomer as Newitz points out in her introduction.  People living around each of these cities knew about them even if the European elites did not.  Then there is "a secret history" phrase in the subtitle!  Newitz is using this term to stoke interest in looking not at the monuments found in these locations, but rather at the ordinary lives of the citizens.  If you enjoy learning about ancient civilizations, you are likely to enjoy this title.

An Assembly of Short-Lived Realms

 Defoe, Gideon.  An Atlas of Extinct Countries.  New York: Europa Editions, 2021.  ISBN: 

          9781609456801

Do you enjoy trivia?  How about collecting minutia for the sake of knowing strange facts?  Or do you just have some time to fill?  If so you are in luck!  Gideon Defoe offers the reader "the remarkable (and occasionally ridiculous) stories of 48 nations that fell off the map."  Mind you, some were pushed.

After offering an explanation for writing this book, Gideon Defoe delves into the tales.  For each country he offers a name, date, population figure, capital, languages, currency, and cause of death along with a map of the country.  He divides the countries into Chancers & Crackpots (examples - The Islands of Refreshment, The Kingdom of Bavaria, and The State of Muskogee), Mistakes & Micronations (examples - The Republic of Cospaia, The Tangier International Zone, and The Soviet Republic of Soldiers & Fortress Builders of Naissaar), Lies & Lost Kingdoms (examples - The Great Republic of Rough & Ready, The Kingdom of Axum, and The Golden Kingdom of Silla), and Puppets & Political Footballs (examples - The Republic of Formosa, Ruthenia, and The Republic of West Florida - the original Lone Star State!).  He finishes the book with some information on flags, national anthems, and a select bibliography of sources.

An Atlas of Extinct Countries is a great browsing book.  You do not want to sit and read it all at once; you would get information overload.  Rather this is a book to dip into, read a country or two, finish your business and replace besides your other trivia books for the next time you need a break from your "serious" reading.  You will be entertained and may even learn a bit of history. 

How to Create an Industry and Loose your Business!

Peterson, Jon.  Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons.  Cambridge, MA: The 

        MIT Press, 2021.  ISBN: 9780262542951

Dungeons & Dragons!  If you grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, you just knew about D&D, especially if you were a nerd, a geek, or just into playing games.  Between college students disappearing into steam tunnels, D&D being banned from school campuses, and claims of devil worship, pop culture was rife with stories about the game.  But what is the real story of how D&D came to be, who created it, and what happened next?  Jon Peterson provides a documented  version of the behind the scenes story in the pages of Game Wizards!

Jon Peterson provides a inside the company history of TSR, the sort-of club that formed to publish a set of cribbed together rules.  It all started in the early 1970s, with Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson collaborating with friends.  They had a bit of success, so they formed a company to distribute the rules for what became D&D and other games.  But bad blood, bad dealings, and questions of ownership and authorship soured the deal early on.  The fallout from early authorship issues haunted TSR for a long time, especially when TSR seemed to be raking in the money.  But inventors seldom make good businessmen, and Gygax, Arneson, and the Blumes (Brian and Kevin) definitely were not.  So on October 22, 1986, Gary Gygax was maneuvered out of his own company in order to save the company.  Under new management, TSR lasted another 10 years until another crisis ended with a sale to Wizards of the Coast.

As a person who played D&D and various other role-playing games during the 1970s and 1980s, this book brought back a lot of memories and cleared up some cloudy areas for me.  So if you are interested in TSR history, D&D history, or how not to run a company, pick up a copy of Game Wizards and enjoy!

Daffy, Bugs, and the Looney Tunes Gang

 Weinman, Jaime.  Anvils, Mallets, & Dynamite: The Unauthorized Biography of Looney Tunes.  

         Toronto: Sutherland House, 2021.  ISBN: 9781989555460

The Looney Tunes!  If you grew up before the Cartoon Network and cable ruined Saturday mornings, you would have seen the Looney Tunes gang in action.  Bugs, Daffy, Foghorn Leghorn, Pepe LePew, Taz, Tweety, Elmer Fudd, Porky Pig, Roadrunner, Coyote, and the rest all ran wild on Saturday mornings for decades!  But as Jaime Weinman explains, they did not start out on the small screen, instead they were big screen stars!

In fourteen enjoyable chapters and a very interesting epilogue, Jaime Weiman walks the reader through the history of the Looney Tunes and Warner Brothers studio beginning with their search for a star to compete with The Mouse.  Bosko did not quite work, Daffy, well, he was a bit over the top.  Elmer Fudd and Porky Pig work better as straight men, so when Bugs Bunny was created, the Looney Tunes system really began to shine.  The Warner Bros. Studio had Chuck Jones, Fritz Freeling, Tex Avery and many others.  But another person was needed - Mel Blanc, the voice of so many Looney Tune characters.  Weinman spends time analyzing the gags used in the cartoons, the switch from writing for movie screens to television screens, the rebooting and rebooting of the franchise along with the search for movie stardom with Space Jam, and spinoffs.  Weinman also spends time discussing stereotyping and racism in the cartoons.  Weinman then concludes the book with an in-depth look at "Racketeer Rabbit" - looking at the characters, the atmosphere, the lighting, and the gags.

If you enjoy the Looney Tunes, you should pick up this book and find out the history behind your favorite characters and episodes!  You will not be disappointed!

A Long Walk Home

 Strauss, Gwen.  The Nine: The True Story of a Band of Women Who Survived the Worst of Nazi 

         Germany.  New York: St. Martin's Press, 2021.  ISBN: 9781250239297

Are you looking for a true adventure tale of female Resistance fighters in World War II?  Then you are in the right book!  Gwen Strauss recounts the trek that her great-aunt Helene Podliasky and eight other Resistance fighters made across Germany at the end of World War II. 

Helene Podliasky, Suzanne, Maudet, Nicole Clarence, Madelon Verstijnen, Guillemette Daendels, Renee Lebon Chatenay, Josephine Bordanava, Jacqueline Aubery du Boulley, and Yvonne Le Guillou were the nine Resistance fighters who had been captured by the Germans in France and transported to Ravensbruck concentration camp, then to a Liepzig work camp where they manufactured panzerfausts for the German army.  They did what they could to sabotage the shells by under-heating them.  In April 1945, the women were marched out of Liepzig heading west away from the oncoming Russian army.  The nine escaped from the column several days into the trip when the guards failed to keep everyone together.  They made their way west by hook, by foot, and by luck.  Some folks they encountered were helpful, some were hateful, but nothing stopped the women from finally reaching the American lines on April 21st and were taken to Colditz.  They later made their way back to Paris and worked on resuming their lives.  

Gwen Strauss manages to incorporate the lives of each women into the flow of the story in a way that embellishes rather than distracts from the narrative flow.  She hooks the reader by opening with the escape and then switches to discussing her great-aunt.  Each chapter moves the narrative along while highlighting another of the nine women.  She concludes the book by providing information on their lives after the return to France.  

The Nine is more than just another tale of heroism, but rather a reminder of all the unsung heroines of the French Resistance that do not get the credit for their hard work, their sacrifice, and their suffering.  Read this tale to have your views on the French Resistance change.

Can you handle the truth?

 Sabar, Ariel.  Veritas: A Harvard Professor, a Con Man, and the Gospel of Jesus's Wife.  New 

         York: Doubleday, 2020.  ISBN: 9780385542586 

On September 18, 2012, in Rome near the Vatican, Prof. Karen King of the Harvard University Divinity School proclaimed the finding of a scrap of parchment that she dubbed, just for "reference purposes," the Gospel of Jesus's Wife.  Veritas explores what led up to this presentation and the fallout afterwards.

Ariel Sabar covered the Rome conference for Smithsonian Magazine in 2012.  He later wrote an article on the results of physical examination of the parchment in The Atlantic in 2016.  He has continued to dig into this story resulting in Veritas which walks the reader though the story in five acts.  Act I is Discovery with the presentation and early reception of the parchment.  Act II is Doubt where people outside Karen King's group raise questions on the dating of the manuscript and what she claims it means.  Act III is Proofs, proof of forgery in regard to an accompanying parchment and then proof in regard to the Gospel of Jesus's Wife.  Act IV is The Stranger, an investigation into Walter Fritz who provided Prof. King the parchment.  Sabar investigates Fritz's background, history, and possible motives for the forgery.  Act V is The Downturned Book of Revelations which is an inquiry into why Prof. King was so eager to proclaim the forgery as genuine. 

In Veritas, Ariel Sabar provides a detailed investigation of the whole Gospel of Jesus's Wife controversy from the beginning until now.  If you have an interest in early Biblical texts, forgery, and/or academic dishonesty, Veritas would be a good read for you.

The Limping Spy of Lyon

 Demetrios, Heather.  Code Name Badass: The True Story of Virginia Hall.  New York: Atheneum 

           Books for Young Readers, 2021.  ISBN: 9781534431874

Who was the "Limping Lady of Lyon?" "The most dangerous Allied spy in France?"  That would be Virginia Hall, a member of both the British SOE and the American OSS, not to mention being a volunteer in the French Army, and later the CIA.  So who is Virginia Hall?  Read Code Name Badass to find out.

Heather Demetrios was wandering around the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C. when she came upon a display of Virginia Hall memorabilia and was intrigued when she learned that Virgina Hall had made the Gestapo's most wanted list while operating with an artificial leg!  This was a story worth writing in grand style!

Demetrios opens Code Name Badass with Virginia "Dindy" Hall in context, i.e. providing information on her early life, her love of the outdoors, and her cheese-making skills not to mention her language skills.  She attended Harvard for a year, then transferred to Barnard College, and then studied abroad in Paris and Vienna.  After college, Dindy got a job with the Foreign Service as a clerk in Warsaw, Izmar (in Turkey where she had a hunting accident that cost her a leg), and later in Venice and Estonia.  In 1939, she left the State Department and moved to Paris.  With the beginning of WWII, she joined the French Army as an ambulance driver.  After the fall of France, Dindy made a strategic withdrawal to England, There she ended up in the Special Operations Executive and was back in France as an agent in Lyon.  That lasted until 1942 when Vichy France was occupied by the Germans and she dashed over the Pyrenees on her artificial leg. In 1944, Dindy left the SOE and joined the Office of Strategic Services as an agent in France where her cheese making skills provided her cover while she recruited, organized, and armed Resistance forces.  When the war ended, she was planning on infiltrating into Austria.  After the war, Dindy joined the the Central Intelligence Agency in the covert action arm.  She finally retired in 1966 and returned to the Maryland farm of her childhood with her husband whom she had met during her service in France.  She died in 1982.

 

In Code Name Badass, Heather Demetrios provides an interesting take on Virginia Hall and the role women played in the French Resistance during World War II.  She documents the facts, provides the juicy details and worships how Dindy succeeded in fulfilling her missions despite all odds.  Do not let the publisher fool you, this is a tale for all ages to enjoy!

An Epic Tale about Comics

Wolk, Douglas.  AllThe Marvels: A Journey to the Ends of the Biggest Story Ever Told.  New 

         York: Penguin Press, 2021.  ISBN: 9780735222168 

Do you read comics?  Are you a DC fan, a Marvel Fan, both?  or do you lean more to the independent comics?  Well, if you are a Marvel fan, Douglas Wolk has a treat for you!  He read 27,000+ issues (540,000+ pages) of comics - from Alpha Flight to Omega the Unknown - so that he "can be a guide to help curious travelers...."  So if you are curious, go on the journey with him!

Douglas Wolk begins by discussing the formation of Marvel, the intersections of all the Marvel stories, and a FAQ of the weird questions many folks pose to him or online.  Wolk begins with the Fantastic Four posing Fantastic Four #51 (June 1966) as the wellspring of the Marvel universe. Spiderman gets his due with a chapter as does the Avengers, the X-Men, Thor and Loki, Black Panther, and Doctor Doom.  Interestingly, Shang-Chi and The Master of Kung Fu merits a whole chapter dissecting Marvel in regard to race and color in comics.  Some of those themes also show up in the chapter on crime fighters, Captain Marvel/Ms. Marvel and Squirrel Girl.  In a series of interlude chapters, Wolk discusses monsters, how the Vietnam War influenced Marvel comics, pop stars such as Dazzler, appearances of US presidents in Marvel comics, March 1965 which is when Marvel really began creating a complete universe for its characters to inhabit, and an revealing chapter on Linda Carter.  Then in the final chapter, Wolk reveals why he read all these comics, he was trying to create a systematic outline for his son to find the tales he enjoyed in the Marvel universe.  

Douglas Wolk takes the reader on a journey through All of the Marvels in 384+ pages.  In the limited space of the book, he provides a springboard for the reader to find their own path into the world of Marvel. 

Heading West!

 Druy, Bob, & Tom Clavin.  Blood and Treasure: Daniel Boone and the Fight for America's First

         Frontier.  New York: St. Martin's Press, 2021.  ISBN: 9781250247131

Daniel Boone - now there is a name that is legendary!  What do you know about him?  How much of what you know is fact versus how much is fiction?  Born in Pennsylvania, trekked to North Carolina with his father,  he is known for trailblazing a path to Kentucky and settling that state while fighting Native Americans during the American Revolution.  But those facts do not tell the whole story.

 

Bob Drury and Tom Clavin provide an interesting biography of Daniel Boone in relation to the crossing the Appalachian Mountains, settling Kentucky, and the course of the American Revolution on the far western frontier.  They divide his life into four parts - The Frontier, The Explorers, The Settlers, and The Conquest.  The Frontier covers Boone's early life, his move to North  Carolina, his involvement with the Braddock disaster during the French and Indian War, his marriage, and his first ventures across the mountains.  The Explorers includes the Pontiac Indian War, the Royal Proclamation regarding settlers, Boone and party finding the Cumberland Gap, and early experiences trapping and exploring Kentucky.  The Settlers discusses Lord Dunmore's War, Logan's Lament, Boone and company moving across the mountains and the early settling of Kentucky with the kidnapping of his daughter, Jemina Boone, and two Callawy girls amidst rounds of assaults on white settlements.  The Conquest opens with the capture of Daniel Boone by the Shawnee, his escape to warn settlers of the British and Indians' forthcoming attack, his service as legislator in the Virginia House of Burgesses, his role in the Blue Lick disaster, and his later life.

In Blood and Treasure, Bob Drury and Tom Clavin provide the reader a life of Daniel Boone that is sympathetic without being a hero-worshiping hack job.  Boone is shown in context of events rather than being an isolated life.  The reader finishes Blood and Treasure more knowledgeable of the settling of the "West" and the surrounding events then in many other Boone biographies.

 

Chance and the Pirate!

 Johnson, Steven.  Enemy of All Mankind: A True Story of Piracy, Power, and History's First 

          Global Manhunt.  New York: Riverhead Books, 2020.  ISBN: 9780735211605

Pirates!  Who does not like to read about pirates?  Tales of swashbuckling adventures, cutlasses gleaming, and treasure to be plundered!  In Enemy of All Mankind, Steven Johnson provides a look at Henry Every, one of the most successful pirates ever, who manages to loot a great treasure and escape into obscurity, never to be caught!

Enemy of All Mankind opens with the crime.  Three small English ships under the command of Henry Every come upon a Mughal treasure ship in the Indian Ocean.  Against all odds, the English succeed in taking and plundering the Mughal vessel. Little is known for sure about Henry Every, so Steven Johnson uses all the craft of a writer to bring him to life while providing context for his life, his crime, and the impact this crime had on the world.  Johnson breaks the story into five parts - The Expedition, The Mutiny, The Heist, The Chase, and The Trial.  "The Expedition" sets the scene with background on Henry Every, terrorism, piracy, the Mughals, the East India Company, and the Spanish Expedition Shipping enterprise which hired Henry Every.  "The Mutiny" covers the mutiny Henry Every lead that provided him a ship The Fancy along with a look at the pirate haven of Madagascar and their future opponent the Ganj-i-Sawai.  "The Heist" walks the reader through the details of the fight to take the Ganj-i-Sawai, the conflicting narratives of what happened after the English victory and the consequences of this act on the fortunes of the East India Company in India and Great Britain.  "The Chase" details The Fancy's travels from the Indian Ocean around Cape Horn and into the Caribbean where the pirate crew split up with some staying, some going on to the colonies in America while Henry Every and several others travel back to England.  "The Trial" looks at the fate of 8 crew members who where caught in England, put on trial, and then put on trial again because the jury had the nerve to side with the defendants in the first trial.

Steven Johnson provides a very readable account of the crimes committed by the pirate Henry Every, placing events in the context of British imperialism in the Indian Ocean and the Caribbean Sea.  If the reader wants to explore the early history of pirates, Enemy of All Mankind  is a great place to start.

Cracking the Cases!

McOmie, Dave.  Safecracker: A Chronicle of the Coolest Job in the World.  Guilford, CN: Lyons 

            Press, 2021.  ISBN: 9781493058518

What did you want to be when you grew up?  Firefighter?  Cowboy?  Indian chief?  Or maybe a chef or a sports star?  But did you know that you could be a professional safecracker?  Well, that is what Dave McOmie became and this is his story!

Dave McOmie tells the story of his career over the course of a week.  Starting with a flight to Vegas on Monday to open a major bank's private currency center because the bankers has overwound the timelock.  And it needed to be done by midnight!  While taking the reader along on this thrill ride, Dave reveals how he got into this business.  Tuesday involved opening an ATM at a theater in full view of the public plus a discussion of professional ethics and the challenge of opening safes.  Wednesday involves a chartered flight to open two gun safes for a widow and the Department of Defense followed a return home for supper.  During the course of the day, he gets a couple of jobs for Thursday and a job for Sunday while discussing the merits of various gun safes.  Thursday involves opening the Portland Air National Guard armory vault with an interesting side-bit on government procurement in regard to safes and vaults.  Friday comes with a fully automatic bank vault to open in Salt Lake City with the need to return home for a daughter's dance recital.   Unlike Vegas, he has plenty of drill bits this time!  Saturday has Dave spending time at home and reminiscing about old jobs, the journal he writes,and the Penetration Parties he hosts.  Sunday involves a flight to Paisley Park, Minnesota to open a Mosler vault after the owner has died.  This opening has a big crowd of lawyers, bankers, and an archivist as well as DEA agents.  And of course this opening would be filmed.  Dave manages to get the safe open in the end only to have a smaller safe he needed to open inside the vault.  

When a reader cracks open a biography, you can never be sure what you will find in side.  In Safecracker, the reader gets a glimpse into a job most people will never experience in a lively, entertaining read!

When Did Globalization Start?

 Hansen, Valerie.  The Year 1000: When Explorers Connected the World - and Globalization 

           Began.  New York: Scribner, 2020.  ISBN: 9781501194108

When you think of the year 1000 of the common era (whether you think CE or AD is up to you), what pops up in your mind?  Is it Vikings sailing west?  Cathedrals being built in France?  Trade in China?  For Valerie Hansen, she thought is connections, specifically trade, global trade!  In The Year 1000, Valerie Hansen takes the reader on a whirlwind tour of the world beginning around year 1000 of the common era and up until about 1450.  She chose the year 1000 since that is around when the Vikings stopped by North America and trade could theoretically be made around the world - from Asia to America and back again.  

Valarie Hansen opens The Year 1000 with an overview of the world, briefly discussing Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Americas along with her argument for globalization beginning in 1000.  She then proceeds to discuss the Viking voyages to Newfoundland and elsewhere in the Americas and the impact this had on trade.  The third chapter of the book covers the trade routes that existed in the Americas among the local groups.  Hansen then returns to the Vikings, but in Europe this time with their search for slaves and treasure in the east, especial among the Rus while also covering trade on the continent and with outside countries.  The reader then travels south to Africa with its slave trade, its trade in gold, and in other commodities.   From Africa, the reader travels to Central Asia with the Silk Road that connected Europe and Africa with the Far East.  Religion and trade played a major role in Central Asia economies.  Next, Hansen explores the sea routes from the Middle East and Africa to India, then Indonesia,and ending at China.  In the last chapter, Hansen explores Chain and the role it played in global trade during this whole time frame.  

Throughout The Year 1000, Valarie Hansen seeks to persuade the reader that globalization started much earlier than the 1500's - the time when most scholars agree global trade began.  She provides ample evidence that trade, extensive trade was happening 500 years earlier.  Whether the reader agrees whit her argument or not,  The Year 1000 is an interesting and informative read.

The Airpower Fallacy

 Gladwell, Malcom.  The Bomber Mafia: A Dream, a Temptation, and the Longest Night of the 

          Second World War.  New York: Little, Brown, and Company, 2021.  ISBN: 978-0-316-29661-8

After the Great War (also known as World War I), air enthusiasts around the world worked on how to make air power more relevant on the battlefield.  They dreamed that fleets of bombers could stream over static battle lines to strike targets in the rear, like cavalry of  old had done; furthermore, they believed this could be a war winning strategy.   They just needed the right machines, the right ordnance, and the right men to make their dream a reality.  In The Bomber Mafia, Malcom Gladwell indulges his interest in the bombers of World War II to lay out some of the stories of the people involved in this utopian ideal.

In the opening of the book, Malcom Gladwell cheerfully admits that The Bomber Mafia began as a series of podcasts that were retrofitted into print.  This origin explains the layout of the book.  Gladwell opens the book with a change in command for the Twenty-First Bomber Command at Tinian Atoll from General Haywood Hansell to General Curtis LeMay.  Gladwell then discusses the Dutch genius named Carl Norden with his "analog computer" bombsight that could accurately drop a bomb on the target.  Gladwell then transitions to the dream of the Army Air Corp as a separate service that could win a war all by itself.  This dream took shape at Maxwell Field in Montgomery (AL), the home of the Air Corp Tactical School.  The stratigic plan was to take out the resources and infrastructure (bridges, railroads, mines, factories, and ports) of a country so that the enemy could no longer wage war.   The creation of a bomber fleet made up of B-17 Fortresses and later B-29 Superfortresses for the Army Air Corp was the result. After the US entered World War II, the Army Air Corp based bombers in England to carry out their plan to bomb Germany into submission.  That did not happen as planned since the Norden bombsight could not deliver on its promise due to mechanical issues and pilot training problems.  Then there was the bombing war in the Pacific.  After bases were established on the Marianas Islands, the B-29s were in range of the Japanese homeland.  But weather, unknown obstacles (such as the heretofore undiscovered jet stream), and inaccurate attacks led to a change in tactics, from precision bombing to simply burning everything down.  The plan changed from precision bombing to just burn everything down. The change in command from General Hansell to General LeMay marked this change in attitudes and tactics.  General LeMay authorized the use of napalm and then the atomic bomb.

In The Bomber Mafia, Malcom Gladwell has provided a very readable, broad-strokes introduction to the utopian ideal of air power.  His notes provide sources to document his statements.  However, for a more detailed look at the utility of bombing in World War II, the reader might want to explore The Bombers and the Bombed by Richard Overy (https://readinwv.blogspot.com/2015/08/ww-ii-bombing-reassessed-again.html) or other books on this topic. 

An Epic Trip into the Past and Back to the Present

 Wood, Michael.  The Story of China: The Epic History of a World Power from the Middle Kingdom

            to Mao and the China Dream.  New York: St. Martin's Press, 2020.  ISBN: 978-1-4711-7601-2

China - a powerhouse now and in the past.  But how did it get to where it is today?  Who started this juggernaut rolling, who grew it to this size, and at what cost?  Join Michael Wood as he takes the reader on a epic exploration into The Story of China. 

Michael Wood opens The Story of China with the December 1899 winter solstice ceremony when the Emperor performed a ritual dating back to the Bronze Age at the Temple of Heaven for the last time.  Then, in nineteen chapters, Wood takes the reader back to the beginning of civilization in what became China and works his way forward to the present time.  Along the way the reader visits the major events that shaped China including stops at the Shang, the First Emperor, the Han, the Tang, the time of the Five Kingdoms, The Song (North and South), the Yuan/Mongols, the Ming, and returning to the time of the Qing, then into the age of the Republic, the time of Mao, and the current regime.  Along that journey are many side trips to understand the Mandate of Heaven, and discover what ordinary folks were doing, writing, and enjoying, and why societies fall apart and reform.

While the reader could rush through this title, The Story of China rewards the careful reader who takes the time read and ponder what he/she has read.  The story of China is cyclical - a kingdom/empire is founded, grows and then falls, only for a new kingdom/empire to rise from the ashes and build upon the earlier foundation.  The culture of China was formed early and is a thread that Michael Wood weaves through the whole book.  The thoughtful reader will see that certain attitudes regarding the role of the state and the importance of cultural stability underlies most of the empires despite what reformers tried to change.  Micheal Wood has written a very insightful history that so easily could have been a hagiography for the present oppressive regime. 

Thanks, St. Martin's Press, for inviting me to review this title.

Southern Myth or Southern Fact?

 Siedule, Ty.  Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner's Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause.  

         New York: St. Martin's Press, 2021.

 

Do you remember learning history, especially American history, in the late sixties/early seventies?  It was bland, black and white, with very little nuances in regard to details and very little context.  The history classes also missed most of actual history.  This is the world that formed Ty Seidule.  Robert E. Lee and Me is Ty Seidule's response to his changing awareness of what American history actually is.

Ty Seidule grew up in the South (Alexandria, VA and Monroe, GA), attended Washington and Lee University and joined the U. S. Army via ROTC.  Only later in life did he live above the Mason-Dixon line.  Later in his career, he was posted to West Point as a history professor.  He had become what he wanted to be early in life - a Southern gentleman like his idol, Robert E. Lee.  But life has a way of changing one's views on people, circumstances, and facts.  Life brings to the forefront concepts and facts that challenge long held beliefs.  Over time and distance, Siedule's views of his hometowns, alma maters, and cherished beliefs clashed with the facts he uncovered.  As a trained historian, Siedule sifted facts from fictions and was forced to change his views on the so-called Lost Cause and its pinnacle of worship, Robert E. Lee.  This change of outlook is the meat of the book.

Robert E. Lee and Me will not resonate with every reader. But, if the reader is willing to listen to Ty Seidule's story, they will learn how to nuance history and its facts for themselves so they are more equipped to make up their own mind. 

Comedy - Native American Style!

 Nesteroff, Kliph.  We Had A Little Real Estate Problem: The Unheralded Story of Native 

          Americans & Comedy.  New York: Simon & Schuster, 2021.

 

Charlie Hill's stand-up act includes the following lines: " My people are from Wisconsin.  We used to be from New York.  We had a little real estate problem."  Kliph Nesteroff riffs off Charlie Hill's comedic life into a broad overview of Native American comedy in this book.

Kliph Nesteroff shotguns his way through Native American comedy with each short chapter providing a glimpse of a different comedian or historical period.  He introduces unknown comedians, such as Jonny Roberts, lesser known groups such as Williams and Ree or the 1491s, and brings in big guns such as Will Rogers and keeps up the examination of Charlie Hill.  He also looks into Wild West shows in the 1800's, vaudeville in the early 20th  century, Jim Thorpe on American Indians in movies, the role of whites playing American Indians on F Troop and the influence of Davy Crockett.  

As the reader travels through the book, wandering off on all the detours but coming back to finish the tale, they should accumulate enough facts to come to this conclusion - Native Americans are human and like to laugh just as much as any one else.  Humor and comedy can be culture specific, but it can also reach across cultures and draw disparate people together, if only for a laugh!